Sunday, February 22, 2015

Compiled by
Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology.

What’s a stake: Yoko Ono invites people all over
the world to join her in spirit when she lights IMAGINE PEACE TOWER in honor of
all the activists of the world; past, present and future. She asks everyone to join together and let
the power of light become a collective expression of the desire for peace and
harmony on the planet.

“The Archarnians, is an appeal for peace. Peace, produced four years later, is a
celebration of peace; for negotiations were nearing completion, and the Peace
of Nicias, delusive end of a ten years’ war, was concluded only a few days
after the play was performed. Lysistrata is
the third and last of Aristophanes’ peace plays that we possess; it has much in
common with the other two, but its spirit is different from either of them. It
is a dream about peace, conceived at a time when Athens was going through the
blackest, most desperate crisis she had known since the Persian War.” (Lysistrata/The
Archarnians/The Clouds, Aristophanes, p. 177)

Beller, Ken and Heather
Chase. Great Peacemakers: True Stories from Around the World.Rev.
Peace and Change by Stephanie Van
Hook (July 2010): “a truly educational and commendable piece
for the shelves of time.”

Great
Peacemakers:True Stories from Around the World
Ken Beller, Heather ChaseLTS Press 03/08
Book Review By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat in Spirituality and Practice.

Conflict,
war and violence are the norm in today's world. But, fortunately, there are
also peacemakers around who offer another path, one that brings meaning and
transformation and hope to a weary planet. Ken Beller and Heather Case spent
five years researching and writing this inspiring and salutary resource, which
presents the true stories of 20 peacemakers. The book is organized into five
sections:

This
is an invaluable resource for youth who need many more models of the different
ways to bring peace into our world of savagery. Each biographies concludes with
a section of quotations from the peacemaker. We highly recommend Great
Peacemakers and hope that it will find its way into religious libraries of
all types.

Over
twenty years ago when he was running for President, John Kennedy published a
book called Profiles in Courage. He
was interested in conventional heroes, principled and dedicated, who devoted
themselves to holding "the ship of State to its true course." Charles
DeBenedetti's timely book is about equally principled heroes who were
frequently at odds with the direction the American ship of State was taking at
home and abroad. The people who gave shape to the American peace movement in
the twentieth century were Jane Addams,
Eugene V. Debs, Norman Thomas, Albert Einstein, A. J. Muste, Norman Cousins,
Martin Luther King, Jr., and Daniel and Philip Berrigan. These dynamic and
individualistic people are discussed in separate mini-biographies in this
volume.

In the book, Peace
Heroes in Twentieth Century America, the editor, Dr. Charles DeBenedetti, lauded individuals "of
conscience and purpose who decided to act at the risk of being wrong for what
they believed was the greater good in living peace." These peace heroes
were persons of hope who aspired not to power but to purpose. Borrowing a
phrase, Dr. DeBenedetti described them as progenitors of "the party of humanity," an association of leaders who
would move beyond nationalistic concerns and consider the well-being of the
whole human family. These leaders would "depict and communicate accurately
the nature and gravity of the global crisis, propose possible solutions, promulgate
an inclusive sense of human solidarity, and, most of all, inspire a sense of
hope that humankind might yet prevail."

...For me and for many others, Charles DeBenedetti was himself a
contemporary peace hero. As a professor of history at the University
of Toledo in Ohio and author of three books, he combined
extensive research with dedicated classroom teaching in his effort to further
the cause of peace. His search for grassroots solutions moved him to help found
the Interfaith Justice and PeaceCenter in Toledo,
which continues to be a powerful influence for good in our area. His passion
for peace thrust him out of the classroom into the world of marches, rallies
and protests where he acted with both courage and intelligence. Throughout his
all too brief academic career, he spoke out against the dangers of nationalism
while finding his own natural home in "the party of humanity." Upon
his death, the amazing outpouring of tributes testified in a graphic way to the
sense of hope that he often inspired in others. Using his own criteria, we can
count him among our local peace heroes....Excerpted from Spirituality in Action, by Fr. James J. Bacik
(Sheed and Ward, 1997), pp. 195-198:

"Yukeoma, the
grand old man of the Hopi, personifies man as part of Nature, much more than
Thoreau did at Walden or in his life. He saw the Sun as Father and the Earth as
Mother, and the Corn as Step-mother. He lived and prayed for that rain which
was necessary for his people, and which came at Walden without effort. His
people handled snakes as Thoreau did the fishes, frogs, birds, and woodchucks.
. . . He spent, not one night in jail, but many years in confinement, among
them time at Alcatraz, one of the worst of American prisons."
"Early one morning we accompanied Dorothy to the bus station and in a
small restaurant nearby we had a cup of coffee. While there, two taxi drivers
were having an argument and one of them took the sugar bowl and threw it in the
face of the other one. The proprietor was crying over the broken sugar bowl.
Dorothy got up and took a napkin and some water and commenced to clean the face
of the taxi driver. Such was her exit from the city to speak on pacifism in the
colleges."

"I know what it is to be in a dark cell for five days, being
told that I was to be executed. I know what it is to enter prison an
'innocent.' I know what it is to be ready to take my life because of loneliness
and despair. I, too, know the uncertainty of the law and with what cooked-up
charges one is liable to be confronted. I know, too, that Alexander Berkman helped me in those perilous days, and this being
in jail again was a conscious move on his part and not an accident. He chose
the hard life, and he chose the hard death. To me he is a friend, a comrade, a
hero."

But out of all these persons, it is perhaps the author, himself, who shines
forth as first among those of whom he writes, in that Ammon Hennacy, himself, is the embodiment of the One-Man Revolution in
America. But Ammon in truth may be more than that. For some men, it is
their fate to play the role of archetype for lesser mortals. As it might be
said that Carl Jung is the archetype of the wise old man, so we might say that
the Christian anarchist and pacifist,
Ammon Hennacy, with his penetrating vision into the chaos of our times, is the
archetype of the prophet whom, like any prophet, we fail to heed at our own
peril.

Bio(s)

Ammon Hennacy (1893-1970) was born in Negley, Ohio. His formal
education consisted of one year each at three institutions: Hiram College in
Ohio (1913), the University of Wisconsin (1914), and Ohio State University
(1915). With the outbreak of World War I, he refused to register for military
service and consequently served two years in the U.S. Federal Penitentiary in
Atlanta, Georgia. In 1931 he engaged in social work in Milwaukee, where he
organized one of the first social workers' unions. With the coming of World War
II, he again refused to register for the draft. He became baptized into the
Roman Catholic Church in 1952 by an anarchist priest. Between 1953 and 1961, he
was an associate editor of The Catholic Worker. In 1961 he organized and
directed the Joe Hill House of Hospitality in remembrance of the martyrdom of
Joe Hill. In Utah he was involved in picketing and fasting protests against
scheduled executions of condemned prisoners at the state prison, fasting on
various occasions for periods ranging from twelve to forty-five consecutive
days. In 1965 he married Joan Thomas, and formally left the Catholic Church.
From that time on, he wished to be known as a non-church Christian. Shortly
after the publication of The One-Man Revolution in America, he suffered a heart
attack while picketing for Lance and Kelback, two convicted murderers scheduled
to be executed. He died six days later, on January 14, 1970.

Two Cents from the Religious Left

In these bleak times, when we struggle to
find the courage to end the absurd war in Iraq let alone bring about the more
fundamental social change the Gospel demands, it’s worth recalling the fierce,
uncompromising witness of Ammon Hennacy.

Hennacy, born this day in 1893, called
himself a Christian anarchist:

A Christian is one who follows
Christ; kind, kindly, Christ-like. Anarchism is voluntary cooperation for good,
with the right of secession. A Christian anarchist is therefore one who turns
the other cheek, overturns the tables of the moneychangers, and does not need a
cop to tell him how to behave. A Christian anarchist does not depend upon
bullets or ballots to achieve his ideal; he achieves that ideal daily by the
One-Man Revolution with which he faces a decadent, confused, and dying world.”
— excerpt fromThe
Book of Ammon.

Hennacy forged his prophetic vision of the
Gospel in daily struggle against violence at every level, a struggle which isbeautifully recounted by the folksinger Utah Phillips,
who lived with him for several years at the Catholic Worker House (The Joe Hill
House of Hospitality) that Hennacy set up in Salt Lake City, Utah. Hennacy
refused to register for the draft in WW I (for which he was jailed for two
years in Georgia, a year in solitary confinement) and WWII, refused to ever pay
taxes because they would support the military, and refused even to accept work
other than casual labor for cash. Hennacy was an indefatigable radical who was
arrested countless times for protesting war and violence of every kind. He died
on 14 January 1970, six days after suffering a heart attack while protesting
the scheduled execution of two men convicted of murder.

Hennacy’s legacy challenges anyone who would
claim to be a Christian. He was driven by faith that Jesus’s message would not
fail the world, whatever the fears and failings of the organized church and its
caretakers. For Hennacy, change wasn’t pie in the sky that you might sing about
on Sunday — and dismiss as an impossibility the minute you hit the parking lot.
Hennacy did not expect political or institutional mechanisms to bring about
change. Change begins when and individual turns her or his heart to God. And
acts accordingly.

David Hartsough is executive director of Peaceworkers, based in
San Francisco, and is cofounder of the Nonviolent Peaceforce and an
initiator of the World Beyond War movement. He is a Quaker and has a BA
from Howard University and an MA in International Relations from Columbia
University. Hartsough has been actively working locally and internationally
for nonviolent social change and peaceful resolution of conflicts since he
met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1956.

David Hartsough knows how to get in the way. He has used his body to block
Navy ships headed for Vietnam and trains loaded with munitions on their way
to El Salvador and Nicaragua. He has crossed borders to meet “the enemy” in
East Berlin, Castro’s Cuba, and present-day Iran. He has marched with
mothers confronting a violent regime in Guatemala and stood with refugees
threatened by death squads in the Philippines.
Waging Peace is a testament to the difference one person can make.
Hartsough’s stories inspire, educate, and encourage readers to find ways to
work for a more just and peaceful world. Inspired by the examples of
Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., Hartsough has spent his life
experimenting with the power of active nonviolence. It is the story of one
man’s effort to live as though we were all brothers and sisters.

Engaging stories on every page provide a peace activist’s eyewitness
account of many of the major historical events of the past sixty years,
including the Civil Rights and anti–Vietnam War movements in the United
States and the little-known but equally significant nonviolent efforts in
the Soviet Union, Kosovo, Palestine, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines.

Hartsough’s story demonstrates the power and effectiveness of organized
nonviolent action. But Waging Peace is more than one man’s memoir.
Hartsough shows how this struggle is waged all over the world by ordinary
people committed to ending the spiral of violence and war.

Praise:

“Peace will only come when all of us become the change we wish to see in
this world. David Hartsough became that change and has spent the best part
of sixty years working to bring peace to our troubled world. His book is
one that every peace-loving person must read and learn from.” —Arun Gandhi,
president, Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute (grandson of Mahatma
Gandhi)

“It has been my privilege to work with David Hartsough over the years and
to be arrested and jailed with him for nonviolent civil disobedience. I
highly recommendWaging Peace to every American who wishes to
live in a world with peace and justice and wants to feel empowered to help
create that world.” —Daniel Ellsberg,Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and
the Pentagon Papers

“When great events happen, such as the falling of the Berlin Wall, we must
never forget that people like David Hartsough and many others have worked
hard to prepare the ground for such ‘miracles.’ David’s belief in the
goodness of people, the power of love, truth, and forgiveness and his utter
commitment to making peace and ending war will inspire all those who read
this book.” —Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Peace People,
Northern Ireland

“David Hartsough has lived an exemplary nonviolent life. Waging
Peace highlights the numerous ways he has done this in many
troubled parts of the world as well as in the United States.” —Martin
Sheen, actor

“If you want to know what it means to live a 'life well lived,' read David
Hartsough’s masterful book. It is not only a page turner, but it will
probably transform the way you look at your own life—your priorities, your
lifestyle, your future.” —Medea Benjamin, cofounder of Code Pink and Global
Exchange

"Over thirty years ago with great trepidation I went
through nonviolence training in order to join the blockade at the Diablo
Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. David Hartsough was my trainer, and his
personal stories inspired me to put myself on the line for what I believed
in. Later I went on to become a trainer myself, and for some years
Hartsough and I were in a training collective together. Now he's
compiled his tales of moments of crisis and his life story into this
wonderful book. Waging Peace will inspire anyone who is concerned
with social and environmental justice, and will help you formulate your own
approach to the activism so crucial now for the world!"
—Starhawk, Author,The Fifth Sacred Thing, San Francisco

"Waging Peace is a collection of powerful and moving
stories about how one remarkable person has acted on his belief that peace
is possible. It's a must-read for anyone who wants to help create the world
we all hope and pray for. Be prepared to be empowered!"
—Parker J. Palmer author of Healing the Heart of Democracy, Let
Your Life Speak, and The Courage to Teach

"For courage, perseverance, and commitment to a nonviolent world,
David Hartsough is my teacher. So I treasure this long-awaited
memoir where, in his unassuming, ordinary way, he takes us along with him
on extraordinary encounters that challenge our notions of what one person
in one lifetime can do. From Guatemala to Kosovo, from Moscow to
Palestine, he lets us see the kind of adventures that are possible for us
as well, when we share his faith in the power of truth and
nonviolence."
—Joanna Macy, author, Active Hope: How to Face the Mess we're in
Without Going Crazy.

“A remarkable man, and a remarkable story, pointing, always, forward,
to what needs to be done, and can be done. It is a book of incitement to
action. It will leave readers challenged to find their own path, with a
greater confidence that nonviolence is not a way of avoiding conflict, but
a way of changing the world."
—David McReynolds, former chair, War Resisters International, long time
staff member of War Resisters League, and Socialist Party candidate for
President in 1980, and 2000

This is a remarkable, deeply moving memoir: a true story of love,
faith, conviction, and courage. You will read it with tears in your eyes,
but also with astonishment at what a determined, nonviolent individual has
done to make our world a more humane, peaceful place.
—Michael Klare, Professor of Peace & World Security Studies, Hampshire
College

David Hartsough’s compelling and exciting account of a life committed to
building nonviolence is important to read not only because it introduces us
to a true hero of contemporary activism, but also because it reminds us of
how much can be accomplished when a small group of people allow their ethical
commitment to healing our planet of war and violence lead them into
courageous action to build a world of peace and justice.
—Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor, Tikkun magazine, and
chair, the Network of Spiritual Progressives,
www.spiritualprogressives.org.

In this highly readable memoir, David Hartsough personifies the adage
“Love life enough to struggle.” A man whose passion for justice and love
for humanity has taken him to many parts of the world into the heart of
some of the most significant struggles of the past sixty years, this book
provides a personalized account of some of the greatest moments in popular
movements for peace and justice.
—Stephen Zunes, professor of politics, University of San Francisco

Permit
me to congratulate you for your persistent and steadfast acting out truth
in the face of power.
—Staughton Lynd, author of Accompanying: Pathways to Social Change
and Lucasville: The Untold Story of a Prison Uprising

The ordinary, extraordinary life of David
Hartsough
By Ken ButiganWaging NonViolence
November 12th, 2014

These ruminations came back to me as I plunged into the pages
of David Hartsough’s new memoir, “Waging Peace: Global Adventures of a
Lifelong Activist.” David has been a friend for 30 years, and over that
time I’ve rarely seen him pass up a chance to jump into the latest fray
with both feet — something he’d been doing long before we met, as his book
attests. For nearly six decades he’s been organizing for nonviolent change
— with virtually every campaign, eventually getting tangled up with one
risky nonviolent action after another. Therefore one might be tempted to
surmise that David is yet another frantic activist on the perennial edge of
burnout. Just reading his book, with its relentless kaleidoscope of civil
resistance on many continents, can be dizzying — what must it have been
like to live it? If anyone would qualify for not living the ordinary life,
it would seem to be David Hartsough.

The fear that we citizens of the United States have been
seduced into since 9/11 spreads across our benighted nation like a fog,
inhibiting all policy alternatives not based in blind vengefulness. Special
are those who have the spiritual clear-sightedness and persistence to make
people-oriented global connections that pierce the fog of fear with the
light of visionary possibility.

One such giant is David Hartsough, whose vivid, even hair-raising, memoir
of a lifetime of peace activism, Waging Peace: Global Adventures of
a Lifelong Activist, has just been published by PM press. It ought to
be required reading for every U.S. citizen befogged by the crude
polarization between Islamic extremism and the equally violent,
ineffective, but seemingly endless Western military reaction it has elicited.

Students, scholars and guests
met in Giffels Auditorium on Tuesday, Feb. 25, for “J. William Fulbright: A
Voice for Reason and Diplomacy.” In this Fulbright Book Forum, professors Hoyt Purvis and Sidney
Burris and professor emeritus Dick Bennett each explored one of the senator’s
texts to compare ideas and themes.

A member of OMNI UA, the
student division of the OMNI Center
for Peace Justice and Ecology, introduced the three scholars and the text that
each would cover. Purvis, professor of journalism and international
relations, focused on The Arrogance of Power (1966). Burris, professor of English and director of the
Fulbright College Honors Program, addressed The Crippled Giant (1972). Bennett,
professor emeritus of English and OMNI Center founder, presented The Price of Empire (1989).

The Arrogance of Power,
Fulbright’s third book, came from a series of lectures. In this critique of
U.S. foreign policy, Fulbright asserts that great nations have a tendency to
equate power with virtue, but the best thing a truly powerful nation can do is
provide a good example to the rest of the world.

“Fulbright
was a politician and a senator, but more than that, he was one of the foremost
foreign thinkers in the world,” Purvis said.

This
foreign policy appraisal was delivered while Fulbright’s own party was in the
White House and in control of both houses of Congress.

“Fulbright
believed that we serve as an example to the rest of the world by the way we run
our own democracy,” Purvis said. “Thoughtful dissent is a part of living in a
democratic society. Fulbright became a dissenter not because he wanted to, but
because he felt he had to. He saw it as part of his patriotic duty.”

Fulbright continued these
themes in The Crippled Giant.
Both books examine the United States’ involvement in Vietnam, and in both
instances Purvis and Burris found criticisms of American Foreign Policy that
still hold true.

Fulbright’s
observations include:

·The war
has been supported by non-factual ideas.

·The
major purpose of the war is external to the country engaged in the conflict.

·The war
has not worked.

·Most of
our friends and allies have been against our involvement.

·We are
in a place not because we should be there but because of what might happen if
we are not there.

·We have
allowed our constitutional protections to be neglected in favor of expediency.

“There
are important differences between what was happening then and what is happening
now,” Burris said. “But I find the similarities more disheartening than I find
the similarities comforting.”

In The Price of Empire,
Fulbright continues to criticize the United States’ need for domination and to
praise fact over ideology.

“All of
his books are strong expressions of his values,” Bennett said. “These books
have a point of view.”

Fulbright
credits growing up in Arkansas with shaping his thoughts on the use of power.
He felt that the richer states had taken advantage of Arkansas for its natural
resources, which gave him a more personal understanding of the “ruthless
exploitation of the weak by the strong.”

This
experience also led to the central theme in almost all of Fulbright’s work –
empathy. The way people and nations find a way out of ruthless exploitation is
through empathy. We must learn about others, appreciate others and develop the
capacity to understand, even if we do not agree.

“We
identify with the physicality of others, not the humanity,” Bennett said. “It
is important that we understand not only our allies, but also our enemies.
International relations can be improved and the possibility of war greatly reduced.
Fulbright's ideas may be considered unsuccessful because they have never really
been tired.”

Empathy
is at the core of Fulbright’s international educational exchange programs. It
is also the foundation of a liberal arts education. Only by understanding our
neighbors – whether they are across the street or across the world – will we be
able to achieve a world that chooses diplomacy over war. Nations can achieve
peace though education.

J. William
Fulbright: Can an Empire Change Its Attitude?

If you previously knew anything about
J. William Fulbright, it was probably of his educational exchange program, one
of the world’s most admired peacemaking innovations. One proposed exchange, as
recounted in his last book, The Price of
Empire, never began.

In the early 1970s Fulbright
approached the Soviets to apply part of their World War II Lend-Lease debt owed
to the U.S. to Fulbright fellowships. Remember, this was in the middle of the
Vietnam War in the middle of the Cold War, but Nixon’s détente was advancing.
The Soviets had agreed to repay about $800 million, and Fulbright hoped to get
“maybe a hundred million.” But the détente was sabotaged by a group of Cold War
Senators, and the Soviets abrogated the exchange agreements and other joint
ventures in retaliation.

The story has a larger meaning. On the first page of Fulbright’s
first book, The Arrogance of Power (1966),
you encounter a main foundation for all. In Old
Myths and New Realities (1966), he writes (my italics): His purpose is “to
stimulate public thought and discussion free of therigid and outdated
stereotypes which stultify many of our foreign policy debates.”
This is a main duty of Congress, he writes, “under our Constitutional system.”
We should and can rid ourselves of dogmas dangerous to humans, such as the Evil
Enemy.

While the poet of “Howl,” Allen
Ginzberg, cries out for “breakthroughs!” to explode the entrenched cruelties
and stupidities, in dispassionate syntax and vocabulary Fulbright applies facts
and irony to weaken the foundations of “prevailing practices” adhered to “with
a fervor befitting immutable principles.”

In his last book, The Price of Empire (1989), Fulbright’s
guide to a humane community and global culture of peace continues to unfold. By practicing international cooperation,
joint international ventures, negotiation and diplomacy, international
understanding, a cosmopolitan perspective, knowledge, facts, reason and empathy
will gradually reduce fear,
paranoia, parochialism, nationalism, jingoism, fanaticism, arrogance,
militarism and wars.

The world was made by human actions;
actions are based on attitudes; and it is “possible to alter human attitudes,”
he believes. Wars are not inevitable (speaking of today: nor are empire and
warming); we can learn, and we must choose.

Join the Discussion, Learn From
Others

J. William Fulbright: Voice of Reason
and Diplomacy

A Forum discussing Fulbright’s
resistance to dogma and fanaticism, to war and empire, during the 1960s to
1980s.

Contents

In
December 1936, Lanza went to India,
joining the movement for Indian independence led by Gandhi. He knew of Gandhi through a book by Romain
Rolland. He spent six months with the Mahatma, then in
June 1937, went to the source of the Ganges river in the
Himalayas,
a famous pilgrimage site. There he saw a vision who told him "Go back and
found!"

He
left then India and went
back to Europe. In 1938, he went to Palestine, then in the midst of civil
war, to Jerusalem
and Bethlehem,
"between two lines of tanks".

He
came back to Paris
at the time when the Second World War started. He wrote some poetry
books and in 1943 he published the story of his trip to India, Return to the Source,
which became a huge success.

He
founded the Community of the Ark in 1948 which first met a
lot of difficulties. In 1954, he went back to India to participate in nonviolent
anti-feudal struggles with Vinoba Bhave.

In
1962 the Community of the Ark settled in Haut-Languedoc, in
the south of France,
at the Borie Noble, near Lodève, in a deserted village. After numbering over a hundred
members in the 1970s and 1980s, some communities were closed in the 1990s due
to conflicts, ageing population (under thirty members) and a lack of interest
in its work and lifestyle. Since 2000, groups are present in few regions of France, in Belgium,
Spain, Italy, Equator and Canada.[1]

In
1965 he was at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina, talking about
no-violence during weeks with the students.

Left to right, Jean-Marie Muller, Lanza del Vasto, Jacques
de la Bollardière on the Larzac during the struggle against the military camp
extension.

In
1972, he supported the farmers of the Larzac plateau
against the extension of a military base while fasting for
15 days. In 1974 a community of the Ark
settled in the Larzac in a farmhouse bought by the army.

Although Maguire from a young age
earned her living as a secretary, she also was from her youth a member of the
Legion of Mary, a lay Catholic welfare organization, and through it she became
deeply involved in voluntary social work among children and teenagers in
various Catholic neighbourhoods of Belfast.
She was stirred to act against the growing violence in Northern Ireland after witnessing
in August 1976 an incident in which a car being driven by anIrish Republican Army(IRA) terrorist went out
of control when the IRA man was shot by British troops. The car struck and
killed three children of Maguire’s sister. Williams was also a witness. Within
days each woman had publicly denounced the violence and called for mass
opposition to it. Marches of Catholic and Protestant women, numbering in the
thousands, were organized, and shortly afterward the Peace People was founded
based on the conviction that genuine reconciliation and prevention of future
violence were possible, primarily through the integration of schools,
residential areas, and athletic clubs. The organization published a biweekly
paper,Peace by Peace, and provided
for families of prisoners a bus service to and from Belfast’s jails.

Although Williams broke away from
the Peace People in 1980, Maguire remained an active member and later served as
the group’s honorary president. In 2006 Maguire joined Williams and fellow
Nobel Peace Prize winnersShirin Ebadi,Jody Williams,Wangari Maathai, andRigoberta Menchúto found the Nobel Women’s Initiative. Maguire was also active in various
Palestinian causes—notably efforts to end the Israeli government’s blockade of
theGaza Strip—and she was deported from Israel
on several occasions.

Endorsement for
Saleem's new book Treasures
of the Earth: Need, Greed and a Sustainable Future (Yale University Press)

"In a book
that ranges from geology to psychology, with a history of metallurgy along the
way, [Ali] argues that sometimes a nation has to extract a nonrenewable
resource...to leapfrog from dire poverty to a more diversified economy"

Saleem H. Ali
is Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont's Rubenstein
School of Environment and Natural Resources and the founding Director of the
Institute for Environmental Diplomacy and Security at UVM's James Jeffords
Center for Policy Research. Currently he is on leave from UVM and serving as
the Director of the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining at the
University of Queensland, Australia where he is also affiliated with the Rotary
Peace Studies Centre. He is also on the visiting faculty for the United Nations
mandated University for Peace (Costa Rica).Dr. Ali's research focuses on the
causes and consequences of environmental conflicts and how ecological factors
can promote peace. Much of his empirical research has focused on environmental
conflicts in the mineral sector. His most recent book is titled Treasures of
the Earth: Need, Greed and a Sustainable Future (Yale University Press).

Dr. Ali is also
involved in numerous nonprofit organizations to promote environmental
peace-building and serves on the board
of The DMZ Forum for Peace and Nature Conservation and
International Peace Park Expeditions in the United States and on the
board of governors for LEAD-Pakistan. He has also been involved in promoting
environmental education in madrassahs (Islamic religious schools) and using
techniques from environmental planning to study the rise of these institutions
in his ethnic homeland -- Pakistan, leading to a sole-authored book published
in January 2009 by Oxford University Press titled Islam and Education: Conflict
and Conformity in Pakistan's Madrassahs.

Among his
earlier works, is the acclaimed comparative case-based research book Mining, the Environment and Indigenous
Development Conflicts. Volumes where he has served as editor include Earth Matters: Indigenous Peoples, The
Extractive Industries and Corporate Social Responsibility (edited with Ciaran
O'Fairchellaegh) and the widely acclaimed volume Peace Parks: Conservation and Conflict
Resolution (MIT Press, September, 2007), which has received cover endorsements
from environmental scientists E.O. Wilson, George Schaller and UNEP executive director Achim Steiner, and a
foreword by IUCN Director General Julia Marton-Lefevre.

The World
Economic Forum chose him as a "Young Global Leader" in 2011. He has
also been selected by the National Geographic Society as an "emerging
explorer" and was profiled in "Forbes magazine" in September,
2009 as "The Alchemist."

Dr. Ali is a
member of the World Commission on
Protected Areas and the IUCN Taskforce on Transboundary Conservation.

Some of his
current research on environmental health perception in mining areas and social
responsibility in the mining sector is supported by the Tiffany &Co.
Foundation . The latest Tiffany-funded project pertains to the Sustainability
of Pearl Farming in small-island states.

Prior to
embarking on an academic career, Dr. Ali worked as an environmental health and
safety professional at General Electric
(based at GE headquarters in Fairfield, CT, and at silicone resin
manufacturing sites in New York). He has served as a consultant for the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Health
Canada as an Associate at the Boston-based consulting firm Industrial Economics
Inc. Pro bono projects include a mining impact prospectus for the Crowe Tribe
of Montana and research assistance to
Cultural Survival (an indigenous
rights NGO).

He is also a
professional mediator and has conducted workshops on consensus-building for
private and public interests, as well as peer review of research publications
for the World Bank, the International Institute for Sustainable Development,
The Woodrow Wilson Center, the Journal of Environmental Management, the Journal
of Environmental Planning and Management, the Natural Resources Forum and Yale
University Press.

Research
appointments include a visiting
fellowship at the Brookings Institution's research center in Doha, Qatar; a
Public Policy Fellowship at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, a Baker
Foundation Research Fellowship at Harvard Business School and a parliamentary
internship at the U.K. House of Commons. Teaching experience includes courses
on environmental planning, conflict resolution, industrial ecology, research
methods and technical writing. Professor Ali received his doctorate in
Environmental Planning from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT), an M.E.S. in environmental law and policy from Yale University,
and his Bachelors in Chemistry from Tufts University (summa cum laude).

Although the
2004 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a Kenyan environmentalist, few have
considered whether environmental conservation can contribute to peace-building
in conflict zones. Peace Parks explores this question, examining the ways in which
environmental cooperation in multijurisdictional conservation areas may help
resolve political and territorial conflicts. Its analyses and case studies
of transboundary peace parks focus on how the sharing of physical space and
management responsibilities can build and sustain peace among countries. The
book examines the roles played by governments, the military, civil society,
scientists, and conservationists, and their effects on both the ecological
management and the potential for peace-building in these areas. Following a
historical and theoretical overview that explores economic, political, and
social theories that support the concept of peace parks and discussion of
bioregional management for science and economic development, the book presents
case studies of existing parks and proposals for future parks. After describing
such real-life examples as the Selous-Niassa Wildlife Corridor in Africa and
the Emerald Triangle conservation zone in Indochina, the book looks to the
future, exploring the peace-building potential of envisioned parks in
security-intensive spots including the U.S.-Mexican border, the demilitarized
zone between North and South Korea, and the Mesopotamian marshlands between
Iraq and Iran. With contributors from a variety of disciplines and diverse
geographic regions, Peace Parks is
not only a groundbreaking book in International Relations but a valuable
resource for policy makers and environmentalists. Saleem H. Ali is Associate Professor of
Environmental Planning at the Rubenstein School of Natural Resources at the
University of Vermont and holds adjunct faculty appointments at Brown
University and the United Nations mandated University for Peace. He is the
author of Mining: The Environment and
Indigenous Development Conflicts.

Fri 05 Oct 2012 -Awards
(Dick: I consider Christopher
Hitchens a brilliant writer and very often a true support of peace and justice,
but I would not give him a prize for peacemaking.}

Get their
2013, 2014 awards

LENNONONO GRANT FOR PEACE 2012

On October 9th, 2012, in Reykjavik, Iceland,
Yoko Ono will give the Biennial LENNONONO GRANT FOR PEACE to five activists.
This day also celebrates the birthday of John Lennon and his son Sean.

This year’s LENNONONO GRANT FOR PEACE recipients are:

·LADY GAGA

·RACHEL CORRIE

·JOHN PERKINS

·CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

·PUSSY RIOT

LADY GAGA

“LADY GAGA is one of the biggest
living artists of our time,” Yoko says, and that “she is not only an artist,
she is also an activist, using her art to bring better communication to the
world. She is being acknowledged for her activism, and how her album “Born This
Way” has widely changed the mental map of the world. And how it has made us
deal with the future world, which happens to be here already.”

Lady Gaga will accept the award
in person, and accept a charitable donation that she will in turn gift to the
Elton John AIDS Foundation to support their work combating HIV among
disadvantaged youth in the U.S.

RACHEL CORRIE

RACHEL CORRIE was a 23-year-old
American peace activist from Olympia,
Washington, who was crushed to
death by an Israeli bulldozer on 16 March 2003, while undertaking nonviolent
direct action to protect the home of a Palestinian family from demolition.

The Foundation conducts programs
that foster connections between people, that build understanding, respect, and
appreciation for differences, and that promote cooperation within and between
local and global communities. The foundation encourages and supports grassroots
efforts in pursuit of human rights and social, economic, and environmental
justice, which they view as pre-requisites for world peace.

Rachel Corrie’s parents, Cindy
and Craig Corrie, will accept the award on Rachel’s behalf. The monetary prize
will be received by the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice.

Perkins has lectured at universities
on four continents, and is now in the process of bringing out his latest book.

John Perkins will attend the
ceremony himself. The monetary prize will be given to Dream Change,
non-profit organization that promotes empowerment and positive change
for more balanced and sustainable communities worldwide.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENSwas an author and journalist with a
career that spanned four decades writing for many of the world’s most
prestigious news outlets such as The Atlantic, The Nation, Vanity Fair, The
Daily Mirror and many more.

He authored twelve books and five collections of essays and was
nominated for the National Book Award in 2007 for his best-selling book ‘God is not Great‘ which contends that organized
religion is “the main source of hatred in the world.”

Hitchens was known for his
confrontational style which made him a widely controversial figure in the western
hemisphere. He routinely took aim at divisive topics such as religion, war,
world figures and international politics.

Christopher Hitchens’ widow Carol
Blue Hitchens will accept the award on his behalf. The monetary prize will
be given to two charitable organizations, 826 National who encourage and
support literacy among under-resourced youth, and PEN who advocate and protect
the rights of writers and free expression.

PUSSY RIOT

On September 21, 2012, at a
special ceremony in NYC, the Russian feminist punk rock band, were acknowledged
for standing firm in their belief for freedom of expression. Yoko Ono
presented the award to Pyotr Verzilov, husband of imprisoned Pussy Riot band
member Nadia Tolokonnikova. The monetary prize is being used to
assist the group’s effort to be released from prison.

Russian feminist punk rock bandPUSSY RIOTstepped
onto the global stage in February of 2012 after a provocative performance at
Moscow’s sacred Cathedral of Christ the Saviour church in which they invoked
the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of President Vladimir Putin.

After a video of the performance
went viral, three of the group’s members were arrested and charged with
HOOLIGANISM.

Their lengthy trial recently
concluded with a two year jail sentence that has seen strong international
criticism calling into question Russia’s
policies towards freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

Pussy Riot has support of
numerous world activists and human rights groups who have staged protests
across the globe.

Yoko Ono with the backing ofAmnesty International, awarded the grant to Pussy
Riot in New York City
on 21st September 2012 in the hope that they will be released as soon as
possible.

Yoko Ono and Amnesty
International Executive Director Suzanne Nossel presented the LennonOno Grant
for Peace to Pyotr Verzilov, husband of Nadia Tolokonnikova, one of the three
imprisoned members of Pussy Riot.(Sept. 21, 2012)

IMAGINE PEACETOWER

The annual lighting ofIMAGINE PEACE TOWERwill take place in the evening at 8pm
local time on the island of Viðey in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Yoko Ono invites people all over
the world to join her in spirit when she lights IMAGINE PEACE TOWER in honour
of all the activists of the world; past, present and future.

She asks everyone to join
together and let the power of light become a collective expression of the
desire for peace and harmony on the planet.